Andy Morriss, my friend and co-blogger over at Market Correction, sent this letter recently to the Financial Times:
Sir,
I was delighted to see Lord Turner’s call to “curb” the U.K.’s financial industry as I had always thought that the “Silly Party” was an invention of Monty Python. Instead I find that it seems to have placed a leader in a top position in the UK government! Once the British government finishes with Lord Turner’s call to “reduce the size” of the financial sector by “apply[ing] special taxes to it,” I am sure that many people in New York, Paris, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo, and elsewhere will be quick to suggest additional measures to ensure that London’s financial industry is no longer “swollen. ” And once Lord Turner is done shrinking the financial industry down to “a socially reasonable size,” we Americans would appreciate it if he could next whittle down your aerospace and defense industries (which inconveniently compete with ours), your insurance industry (Lloyd’s is just too big for a country Britain’s size), and your energy industries (BP is much, much too large for Britain) to a more modest and appropriate size. Perhaps the original Silly Party M.P. for Luton, Tarquin Fin-tim-lim-bim-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F’tang-F’tang-Olè-Biscuitbarrel, can be lured from retirement to help Lord Turner with this vital mission.
Andrew P. Morriss
H. Ross & Helen Workman Professor of Law and Business
Professor, Institute for Government and Public Affairs
University of Illinois
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The City is emptying out. The hedge funds are obliging Lord Turner by fleeing to Switzerland.
I wish I could get into Switzerland. They’ve pretty much erected an impenetrable wall to immigration.
Morriss’ reference to the Silly Party is located on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31FFTx6AKmU
It is a great commentary on both the electorate and the media.
T Rich
We actually had a silly party in Canada: the Rhino party. They advocated annexing the United States so we could eliminate foreign control over our national resources. They also wanted to adopt the “British system of driving on the left; this was to be gradually phased in over five years with large trucks and tractors first, then buses, eventually including small cars and bicycles last.” Then the man changed the law in 93 so that you had to pay $1000 to run for parliament. That killed all the fun. Politicians hate fun.
Maybe I just don’t understand how this phase in was supposed to work, but…..how was this supposed to work if cars drive on the left and suddenly a bus comes barreling at them from the other direction in the same lane? How silly is silly exactly?
I don’t think it was supposed to work. My guess is that was the point. As a sometime bicycle rider, I thought it was very funny.
Because they were a satirical party.
They even threatened to declare war on Belgium unless they sent beer to their party headquarters and the Belgian Embassy had enough of a sense of humour to actually do it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_Party_of_Canada
Please tell me they published this letter…
One day soon a modern day philosopher can proclaim — “The nation-state is dead”
“But we used to own the world and now look at us….”
I am all for the pirate party – a true European and internet driven party. Funnily enough, my mum voted for them in Sweden – that s a sign of change as she can barely use email
Martin Wolf in the Financial Times sounded exactly the same defeatist drums as Lord Turner and below the letter that I sent them (which, in my particular case, means it was not published)
.
Sir,
What caused this crisis, were the regulators in Basel executing the mother of all interferences in the risk allocation process of the markets. Not only did they appoint the credit rating agencies as Thee Official Risk Surveyors but they also empowered them by concocting minimum capital requirements for banks that covered an incredible range from 8.3 to 1 to 62.5 to 1with all of it depending on the ratings.
In this respect when Martin Wolf in “Why Britain has to curb finance” refers to UK regulators having “an influence on the world economy out of proportion to the country’s size” he is either too parochial or he still completely misunderstands what has happened. Also a sheer reference to a “light touch” in the context of financial regulations would be almost laughable if not for the sad and serious consequences of the very heavy handed and truly relevant regulations that from Basel hit the world, London included.
Frankly the UK cannot afford to curb anything, less it wants to be left out completely. And the Financial Times should be the first to know that. Go City of London go!
In the title of the letter ( http://bit.ly/fZshB ) you will find the link to Martin Wolf’s article